Easy Tatting Shuttle Christmas Ornament Tutorial

Here’s a cute and easy Christmas ornament to show off your tatting obsession.

WHAT YOU’LL NEED:

A small Styrofoam ball, or similar ball. Ideally, one that you can poke a needle through.

A long needle, that you can fit through your ball.

A skein of thread.

An extra shuttle that you can spare for the Christmas season.

A pair of pliers for pulling the needle through (optional but handy).

WHAT TO DO:

1. Get your Styrofoam ball and wrap your thread around it in every which way so that it covers the ball entirely.

2. Leave a long length of extra thread and cut it off from the skein. Thread your needle with the extra.

3. Poke your needle through the Styrofoam ball with the extra thread and pull it all the way through. Use the pliers to pull the needle through if you need to.

3b. Alternately, if you don’t have a permeable ball, you can tie the thread around the ball tightly so that it doesn’t slack and fall off.

4. Now get your shuttle. I picked the festive colors of red and green.

5. Leaving some of the end thread loose, wind the shuttle till it is hanging pretty close to your ball. Using the extra thread, tie a loop to hang the ornament from on the opposite side of the shuttle from the ball.

6. The shuttle will hang vertically more neatly if the thread hangs from opposite sides of the shuttle points. In other words, if the thread coming out of the top is on the right side of the points, then the shuttle thread on the bottom should be to the left.